Media and Press

The summer issue of our Instream newsletter features the latest in our campaign to remove Winchester Dam, drought concerns, legislative successes, data centers, and more. With outdoor season upon us and Oregon’s drought increasing in severity throughout the state, there’s no doubt summer is here. And with that, the 16-page summer issue of our Instream […]

By Jim McCarthy  |  June 9, 2026  |  The Osprey The days are numbered for Winchester Dam as conservation wins — and costs — mount. Wins keep coming in the WaterWatch-led campaign to remove Winchester Dam and put an end to the biggest fish killer on Oregon’s North Umpqua River. Recent dramatic progress on this

By Amy Graff and Anna Griffin  |  May 12, 2026  |  New York Times After a warm winter that brought more rain than snow, the state’s snowpack is the lowest it has ever been. This time of year, Don Gabbard, a fire chief in eastern Oregon, wants to look up at the Strawberry Mountains and

By Mateusz Perkowski  |  April 16, 2026  |  Capital Press A proposal to build a new 12,000 acre-foot irrigation reservoir in Oregon’s Willamette Valley has again failed to pass muster with state water regulators. The East Valley Water District had urged the Oregon Water Resources Commission to authorize the project, which would inundate nearly 400

By Alex Heard  |  April 15, 2026  |  RE:PUBLIC Last March, the Trump administration announced an initiative to build affordable housing on federal property. Then it went quiet. An innovative idea, or another attempt at a public lands selloff? For staffers at conservation groups like The Wilderness Society and Defenders of Wildlife, the daily routine

By Emily Harris and Natasha White  |  March 23, 2026  |  Uplift Local For decades, The Dalles has been trying to get ownership of 150 acres of Mt. Hood National Forest land around the Crow Creek reservoir that’s a major source of the city’s water supply. For months, the city has been fighting accusations the effort

By Alex Baumhardt  |  March 23, 2026  |  Oregon Capital Chronicle The legal fights are the result of a host of violations the Winchester Dam operators are accused of during botched repairs that left half a million lamprey dead. Legal fights over the future of a small southern Oregon dam are intensifying in the wake

By Martin Gibson  |  March 17, 2026  |  Columbia Gorge News The City of The Dalles wants to double the size of its primary water storage reservoir, Crow Creek, and pull more winter runoff from the Dog River — a project first planned in the 1990s. Through legislation sponsored by Rep. Cliff Bentz, dubbed “The

By Kyle Odegard  |  March 2, 2026  |  Capital Press Oregon’s snowpack looked “terrible” roughly one month from when it should hit its peak, and that could contribute to drought and wildfires and cause irrigation problems, said Larry O’Neill, Oregon state climatologist. The state’s snow-water equivalent was 32 percent of the median from 1991 to

By Zac Ziegler  |  Feb. 23, 2026  |  KLCC Radio A privately-owned dam on the North Umpqua River near Roseburg must update its fish ladder by 2029. Members of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted six-to-one on Friday to adopt an administrative law judge’s order ruling that the Winchester Dam has been in violation

By Mateusz Perkowski  |  Feb. 5, 2026  |  Capital Press Fewer restrictions would be imposed on voluntary groundwater pumping reductions under a bill meant to ease the economic impact on irrigators from new regulations in the Harney basin. Late last year, Oregon water regulators decided to regulate the basinowing them to halt groundwater withdrawals to

By Jim Robbins and Ruth Fremson  |  Feb. 1, 2026  | New York Times Warm temperatures and extremely low snowfall threaten water resources in several western states, including Oregon. While record snowfall and single-digit temperatures pummel much of the United States, an extreme snow drought and unusually warm weather are keeping skiers off the mountains, snowmobilers

By Sam Hill  |  Jan. 25, 2026  |  SFGATE  Concerns about Big Tech have emerged in a proposal to transfer land from the Mount Hood National Forest. Along the scenic shores of one of the Columbia River, a water dispute is growing between environmentalists and a city where Google devours nearly a third of its

By Mateusz Perkowski  |  Dec. 15, 2025 |  Capital Press Rights holder wants to change use from irrigation to sand and gravel mining. An environmental group has failed to convince Oregon regulators to cancel a water right associated with a Josephine County property whose owners are seeking a controversial transfer. The owners of the 65-acre

By Alejandro Figueroa  |  Dec. 12, 2025 |  Oregon Public Broadcasting Farmers in Harney County have come to rely on an aquifer that has long been known to be in serious decline. Now, Oregon water regulators will make drastic changes to how much water they can draw from the ground, following more than two years

By Mateusz Perkowski  |  Dec. 12, 2025 |  Capital Press Critics of the state’s adopted plan say it doesn’t protect the region’s ag-based economy. A petition seeking alternative rules to stabilize groundwater levels in Oregon’s Harney basin has failed to persuade regulators, who instead adopted the strategy preferred by a state agency. Though the Oregon

By Mateusz Perkowski  |  Dec. 11, 2025 |  Capital Press Water board will take testimony, but says it has grounds to deny application. Oregon water regulators are proposing to again reject a new irrigation reservoir in the Willamette Valley, though they plan to hear additional arguments before making a final decision. The Oregon Water Resources

By Stephen Floyd  |  Nov. 28, 2025  |  Our Town Community News The Oregon Water Resources Commission (OWRC) is set to discuss next steps on whether or not to approve an irrigation dam on Drift Creek, outside Silverton, during its regular meeting in December. This follows an Aug. 7th Oregon Supreme Court decision undoing the

By Sean Patrick Cooper  |  Nov. 24, 2025  |  Rolling Stone Amazon has come to Oregon’s eastern farmland, worsening a water pollution problem that’s been linked to cancer and miscarriages. In the spring of 2022, Jim Doherty kept having the same conversation with folks at the only grocery store in Boardman, his eastern Eastern Oregon

This article originally appeared in the autumn 2025 issue of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Instream newsletter. A proposal to build a new dam and reservoir on Drift Creek, a tributary to the Pudding River in Marion County, is heading back to the Oregon Water Resources Commission — but only after setting an important precedent for protection

By Alejandro Figueroa  |  Sept. 29, 2025  |  OPB A coalition of irrigators, tribes and local governments organized under state Rep. Mark Owens — a Republican from Harney County and a farmer — recently filed a petition asking the Oregon Water Resources Commission to consider a different set of rules that diverges from regulators own

By Kendra Chamberlain  |  Aug. 27, 2025  |  Columbia Insight A court decision has upheld existing instream water rights held by the state on Drift Creek, a tributary of the Pudding River. A decision by the Oregon Supreme Court is being lauded as a win for fish, but could throw a wrench into future water